Flygirl (5 page)

Janice Johnson's eyes went real wide, and she made a noise like a hiccup. “You—you little tart,” she stammered. People were turning to watch. Jolene smiled, liking the audience she had. She looked at Janice sweetly. Janice's beautiful pale face had gone red and blotchy.

“Tell it to your mama,” Jolene said, turned on her heel, swished her hips, and left. I had to hurry to keep up with her. We laughed about it all the way down the block, but it had left a sour taste in my mouth. I never wanted to be like Janice Johnson or her cousin Stevia.

Now I smile in spite of myself. “Look at me. No license, no chance of getting one, and not even allowed to volunteer myself to fly. Thomas was right to call me Clayfoot.”

Jolene gives me a hug. “Cheer up, Clayfoot. Something's gotta give.”

“Yeah. Something.”

 

 

Abel is the first to notice the Oriental girl in the photograph. “Is she colored?” he asks me. I'm folding clothes on my bed, still stiff from hanging on the clothesline. Abel thinks he's helping me, but he's really just sitting at my dressing table, fooling around with my combs and things. I turn to see what he's pointing at. It's the article about the WASP. After my little talk with Jolene, I cut the article out and clipped it to my mirror. It just gives me something to think about if I can't join them. Abel is pointing to the article's photograph, a picture of a group of the women in uniform.

“There aren't any colored folk in the WASP,” I tell him, barely giving him a second glance. I'm too hurt to want to talk about it anymore.

“No, you're not looking. Her. She's colored or something. Her name is . . .” He leans in real close to read the caption of the photograph.

“Hazel . . . Ah Ying. Ying? What kind of name is that?”

Ying. It's like a bell going off in my head. “Ying? Are you sure?” I drop the blouse I've been fussing with and scramble over to the vanity.

“There,” Abel says proudly. It's true, at the end of the row of white faces, one is a little darker than the others. Hazel Ah Ying.

“She's not a Negro, Abel. She's Chinese.”

“Chinese? Aren't we at war with the Chinese?”

I kiss my brother on his curly head. “No, silly, we're fighting the Japanese. Two different countries. You'll learn about that in school.”

I can't stop smiling. They let a Chinese girl into the WASP program. A real Chinese girl. That means there's hope for me, too.

“You should sign up,” Abel says, like he's reading my mind.

“Should I?”

“Yeah, why don't you?”

Why not? I think, but then the other reasons come knocking. “For one, I don't have a license—”

“Daddy does.”

“That's not the same thing, Abel. I need my own pilot's license to apply. All the flying and studying in the world won't make up for that.”

Abel frowns. “You could borrow Daddy's license. Just like you borrow the truck sometimes, can't you?”

It's my turn to frown. Abel got my hopes up without meaning to, and now I'm feeling hurt all over again.

“No, Abel, you can't. Now, don't you have somewhere to be?” I snap. I don't mean to, and I feel sorry the minute I say it, but I know I'll be better off alone.

Fortunately, Abel is too caught up in his own thoughts to notice me. “See you later, Ida. I'm a help Mama make a pie.”

He slides down off of my dressing chair and bounces out of the room.

The next morning, I'm up early, not because I'm eager for work, but because I never really went to sleep. The article Abel gave me is clutched in my fist, the newsprint smeared across my fingers. I head up into the attic and find Daddy's flying box.

It's a cash box, really, metal with a key still stuck in the lock. All of his flight manuals and paperwork are inside. I settle to the floorboards and put the box in my lap, running my fingers over the cool gray edges. This little box was like a treasure chest for me from the minute we landed in Daddy's Jenny. It was a school and a library, too. I must've read everything in here at least a hundred times. And now, my fingers know exactly what they're looking for.

In a small leather portfolio, worn as an old shoe, stuck in a place of honor, is my daddy's pilot's license. The license photo was one of the few pictures we had of him, so Mama took it out a long time ago and put it in the locket around her neck. It's just a blank sheet of yellowish paper now, a little rough where the photo was peeled up. I rub my fingers across the page. Iden Mahé Jones. He was named in English and French by his mother, and I was named after him.

Daddy's license photo was taken with a Brownie camera, just like the one Mama used on vacation in Philadelphia when I was a baby.

I sit up there in the dust and the heat of the attic, Mama's bedroom clock ticking away through the floorboards up to me, and I feel a hand on my shoulder. Daddy's hand. He gives me just a little push, and though I don't believe in ghosts, I believe my daddy is with me, and he's telling me what to do next.

Iden Mahé. Ida Mae. There's a typewriter at the Dupree house, and I know Jolene will help me. I'm down those stairs just as soon as I can close the flying box. “Mama, where's the camera?”

“What, girl? Don't you come running through here like some man, banging your feet down those stairs.”

“Sorry, Mama.” I round the corner to the kitchen, where she's sitting at the table, balancing the books. “It's just that . . . where's the camera? The Brownie Daddy bought for your trip to the World's Fair?”

“What you want with it?” Mama is way too good at reading when I'm up to something. I think fast.

“I thought I could take some pictures of home to send to Thomas.”

Mama's face softens, and I feel terrible for lying. I promise myself that I will take some pictures for him.

Mama sniffs. “Baby girl, you do think of the sweetest things. All right, it's in the closet in my room, on the top shelf. There's some film in there, too, but it might be old. Take some change from the counter and buy some new film at the drugstore.”

“Yes, ma'am. And thanks, Mama.” I kiss her soft brown cheek. She's the best a mother can be. When I run outside, I try not to slam the screen door, just for her.

“Girl, that ain't never gonna work,” Jolene says, but she takes the picture, anyway. I stand in front of a white sheet hanging on her mother's clothesline, held taut at the bottom corners with clothespins clipped to strings on stakes, like a one-walled tent.

“Do two more, just to be sure.” The sun isn't too high in the sky anymore, so the shadows should look all right. I've got my hair done in a little wave, nothing too fancy. This is a serious photograph, after all. “Should I be smiling?” I ask. I don't know why I'm so nervous. It's just a picture.

“Ida Mae, if you don't stop fidgeting, we'll waste the whole roll of film on this nonsense.”

“Sorry.” I've already used up half the roll on pictures of the farm for Thomas, for Mama's sake. I don't want to spend more money to buy more film just because I'm nervous.

“All right, then, one with a smile, one without.”

The next day, on our way home from cleaning houses, I drop the roll off at Katz and Besthoff's and wait for the prints to arrive in the mail. And then I write a letter to the director of the WASP program, at the address printed in the paper, and tell them I'd like to apply.

The pictures are the first to come back, in a thick cardboard envelope in the mail. I send half of them to Thomas, like I told Mama I would, then I go back to my room and try to figure out which picture will work the best on Daddy's license. You can see the grass in the corner of the first photograph, and Jolene's shadow is covering half my face in the second. The third shot is good, but I'm smiling and I don't know if I should be. Daddy's not smiling in his picture, except for his eyes. The last photo will have to do. I look serious, but not too serious, and the sheet looks like a real photo backdrop.

I lick an eraser and use it to carefully remove the
n
and the
hé
in my father's name and year of birth. It will be best to put the picture in and then run the whole thing through the Wilsons' typewriter to make the changes. That way, the photo might curl a bit and look less new. With a jar of paste borrowed from Abel's school supplies, I carefully paste my picture into the booklet, over the place Daddy's picture used to be.

It looks good there, side by side with the official pilot's license. I'll bring it to the Wilsons' day after tomorrow, when Jolene and I do our next cleaning. And then, well, we'll just have to see.

The day I get the letter telling me to come to the Armory Building on Canal Street for an interview, I almost swallow my tongue to keep from letting Mama hear me squeal. Now my paste job on Daddy's license gets put to the test and so do I. Jolene lets me borrow some of her best nylons—a rare treat since the war rationing began. I pack them in my cleaning bag, along with my best navy blue skirt suit, the one Mama bought me for high school graduation. It's a fine Tuesday morning when we go to clean at the Wilsons'. But instead of cleaning, Jolene helps me get dressed for my interview. We put my hair back in a bun so it looks neat and out of the way. I pull on those nylons and put on a low pair of heels. I feel like an army girl already.

“Girl, that suit's all you got? You'd best borrow something from Mrs. Wilson's closet. No point in looking podunk if you can help it.”

I look at my suit in the Wilsons' bedroom mirror. “There's nothing wrong with this suit. Besides, Mrs. Wilson would fire us both if she caught us playing dress up in her closet.”

Before the last word is out of my mouth, Jolene's dropping a stole around my shoulders. Silver gray fox fur. It makes the blue of my suit look richer somehow.

“Now, Jolene, listen to me. I'm not wearing a fur in the middle of this heat.”

“Girl, you'd better hush and let Jolene do her magic.”

I huff but bite my tongue. The fur does look good. The little hat Jolene puts on me next looks even better. Black felt with a blue grosgrain ribbon, a couple of dyed blue pheasant feathers, and a short blue birdcage veil. I look at my reflection in the mirror. I look like a movie star.

“That's fine, fine,” Jolene says approvingly.

I hesitate, but my reflection makes the decision for me. I really do look like a different person, not a housemaid in her graduation suit, but a lady with confidence.

“I suppose . . . as long as I return it before she gets back into town.”

“That's what I'm saying,” Jolene agrees with a self-satisfied smile. “Now remember, walk tall, say ‘yes' instead of ‘yeah,' and for heaven's sake, don't talk to anybody you know. You're white now. Act like it.”

I laugh, until I realize she's not kidding. “Jolene,” I say, butterflies crowding my belly, “I wasn't gonna try to pass. If they took an Oriental girl, I think they'll accept me.”

Jolene scowls at me, and I can't tell if it's because she's angry at me or at what I'm doing. “Sugar, do you or don't you want to fly?” she asks me.

“Of course I do.”

“Then you'd better be safe over sorry. The more you sound like a country cousin, the less they'll want you, Negro or not. So, stop saying ‘gonna' and get yourself downtown before you chicken out. And every time you think of turning back, remember this is your war effort. Do it for your brother. Just go.”

She sends me off with a kiss on the cheek and not another word. I look at her in the doorway of the Wilsons' house and she doesn't wave. Neither do I. I turn my back on Jolene and walk to the trolley car that will take me downtown. I'll be able to do something more than collect bacon fat and iron scraps if they'll let me fly. Light skin and good hair could put me in a military plane. Lord knows I don't want to stand by the door waiting for Thomas to come home. I want to help him. And I guess if that means playing white, that's what I'll do.

When my trolley comes, I have to remind myself to take a seat in the front. My skin gets all prickly just walking up the aisle. I start to feel hot when I sit down and fan myself with my gloved hand. No one says anything, though, and before I know it, I'm downtown, walking through a doorway where nobody stops me. The man operating the elevator is colored, but he doesn't look twice at me, avoiding my eyes. That same shyness we all learn down here might work in my favor today.

On the third floor, a secretary takes my name and asks me to sit in a small wooden chair outside of the representative's office. Only one other woman is in the hallway, standing a few yards away. She's colored, the same shade of mahogany as my mother. I smile at her. She smiles back, shyly, and looks away. I have never seen another colored female pilot before, but I know that is what I'm looking at the minute I see her. There's something straight in the way she stands that says she's seen what the world looks like from the clouds. I open my mouth to say something, anything, to her, when I remember my new place. Jolene was right. White women don't ask colored women if they can fly.